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A wheat disease that was discovered in Uganda continues to spread across continents. Various efforts are being made to check its spread.

Wednesday May 7 2014

Wheat at a trial site in Kisumu, Kenya. Ugandan scientists are collaborating thier counterparts across the border to check wheat diseases. PHOTO BY LOMINDA AFEDRARU

In Summary

A wheat disease that was discovered in Uganda continues to spread across continents. Various efforts are being made to check its spread.

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By Lominda Afedraru

It is always the goal of agricultural scientists globally to breed varieties with the capacity to resist pests and diseases and it is also their desire to see farmers reaping good yields out of what they sow.

However, this is not yet in sight in the case of scientists engaged in breeding wheat varieties that cannot be attacked by the deadly fungal wheat disease UG99, which was discovered in Uganda in 1999 by Dr William Wagoire. It is now spreading so fast in a number of wheat-growing countries globally especially in the Asian countries.

DiscoveryCrop scientists breeding various wheat varieties in countries such as Uganda, Kenya, South Africa, UK and US, among others, realised that UG99 had spread from Uganda to countries like Yemen, Iran, India, Bangladesh and NepalBut the current trend of the disease spread indicates that it has reached Pakistan and Australia with fears that it may soon get into Europe and the US.

It was in 1998 that Dr William Wagoire, now director, Buginyanya Zonal Agricultural Research and Development Institute, having observed the stem rust, which was destroying farmers’ wheat, decided to collect samples of the virus, which appeared to be more dangerous.

He tested it on a gene called Sr 31, which scientists the world over were previously using to curb the stem rust disease. The experiment demonstrated that his sample represented a unique and dangerous pathogen patterns that could wipe the crop globally.

Wagoire compiled a report about his discovery in 1999, which was published in a peer-reviewed journal where it was named UG99.

Previously, stem rust was the most feared disease destroying various wheat varieties grown globally because it could turn healthy wheat crops into a mass of stems ending up producing no grains. With UG99, it destroys the crop completely with no success of regeneration.

Scientists in the UK at John Inns Centre, Norwich Research Park for the last four years have been breeding wheat varieties to counter UG99, using a gene found in wild grass that related to wheat.

Dr Brande Wulff, the lead researcher, explains: “We started conducting this research four years ago by making crosses between resistant wild relatives of wheat grass, which are genetically mapped to UG99 stem rust. At the laboratory level we are trying to define resistance and the next stage will be identifying the resistant gene which we shall eventually stack to our breeding wheat variety.”

Searching for a solutionThe team, according to Dr Brande, is cloning DNA of the wild grass called Aegilos Sharoneusis, commonly known as Sharon goat grass, to their indigenous wheat varieties. This will result into a genetically modified product.

They started with stacking a gene called Sr 31 using the mutation where they realised increase in the yield rate by five per cent. Farmers in UK were willing to adopt it but it has since succumbed to wheat rust.

They further used Sr 24, which was distributed by the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Centre (CIMMYT) based in Mexico. Later, they also used Sr36 and all these genes according to the scientist have been overcome by UG99.

Currently, the researchers are using Sr 14 and Sr44, which they think has resistance to stem rust and UG99.

Dr Brande and his team will take approximately two years to clone these genes to the wheat variety. They will specifically study the DNA of the stacked wheat variety and see if it is not susceptible to the plant.

CollaborationA recent report on the status of UG99 by UN’s Food and Agricultural Organisation indicated that wheat represents approximately 30 per cent of the world’s production of grain crops. For instance, a total of 598 million tonnes was harvested in 2011 on 220 million hectares of land.